Fly Away Home
by TheJauntyJabberwock
Summary: "Next thing you'll be telling me Faeries are real!" -Victor Frankenstein
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** Playing with the timeline a touch.

* * *

The creature sat in the cell which had been provided for him, the place where he had been so foolishly imprisoned. He flipped through the pages of the poetry book left to him, no heart for the text within or the world outside. How foolish had he been, to trust them as he had? To think even a woman blind to his appearances could show genuine kindness or mercy? He was a freak. A monster. He would always be this creature, drifting in a world that had no place for him beyond these iron bars. Which he could rip from their hinges in moments, should he chose.

He didn't chose. He sat. He tolerated his former employer and deceiver's idle conversation with no words to return for the man possessed and consumed by greed. He couldn't even bring himself to call the other a monster in his place, the world had beaten him so far down there was some part that said he was exactly where he belonged. Tucked away where people could come and pay to gasp at him and jeer at him. He had no struggle for it, no fight. Until the night he heard something peculiar outside. The former employer had told him not to bother screaming. No point. And yet this night he could hear the pluck of strings and a melodious voice drifting outside of his window. It was beautiful, more so than any poem he had read, and without thought he had risen to his feet and begun to reach for the grated window above which lead to the alleys. He could almost reach it, almost touch it with his finger tips, but was only just to short. He didn't know the language being sung, though it came ever closer. As it approached, he strained to reach that window, compelled towards the tune beyond reason, not understanding the drive or desire, only that he must see who was responsible for the sounds. A jump allowed him to at last wrap his hands around the bars, attempting to pull himself up to peer out, only to fall back with a crash. The music stopped, and he lay sprawled upon the stone floor in a daze. What had he been doing, just then?

He stared up at the window, and in a moment saw a face crouch down to peer down inside his cage. In an instant he was scrambling to his feet, trying to cover his face so as not to frighten the one above. The eyes were as beautiful as the song, and he had no doubt she was responsible for the reprieve from his dreary conclusions for the world. When she spoke, it was with a faint accent he found somewhat familiar. Scottish? Irish? He couldn't tell which.

"Hello," it was at once gentle and playful, "What are you doing down there? It doesn't look very comfortable..." her eyes drifted over the bars both above and below, the gaze narrowing to a slit and voice dropping a few octaves, "Are you being held prisoner?" The tone said it for her. She knew the answer already, it would do him little good to argue. Yet he managed the confidence a caged man might see fit to lack,

"I can leave when ever I like."

"Well then, how nice." she rose, he caught a flourish of skirt and cloak turning to leave.

"Wait!" A moment of silence,

"Yes?"

"...Might I inquire as to who you are?"

"Climb out of your hole, and I will tell you."

"I doubt you would appreciate the vision which would greet you."

"You know nothing of me."

"Nor you of what I did to be put here." Silence.

"Fair point, though by your own admission it is no prison, but that which you have made for yourself." the face reappeared, curiosity compelled as she continued,

"You may find I am not so easily frightened." it was a challenge. He wasn't sure he cared for how obvious that was, torn between the duality of staying slinked to the shadows or rising to meet it. In the end he settled between the two polar drives, stepping slowly forward into the light. She laughed, and he instantly felt his stomach knot as he retreated, about to chase her away but she spoke before him,

"Not frightening in the least! Is that what you were so worried about?" she sank down, laying flat on her stomach before the grate, no concern for the filth of the street, her expression playful and open.

"I know a place, where an appearance like ours is no issue at all." Theirs? She was, from what he could make out, nothing short of beautiful. Though he had only seen her face, and only in the dim lights provided. What did she mean by that? The words dripped with a longing he had yet to hear from anyone, a poetic sigh from lips,

"I know a place...it will be difficult to get there..." she was off somewhere far away for a moment, and then her attention came back to him, "If you decide you've had enough of hiding in a hole, come and find me." She was rising again to go, song drifting back to him,

"I know just the place, just the place...fly away home..." She was leaving as quickly as she appeared. The creature inside the cage took his seat, and found the whole interaction more and more unusual as the sensation of song began to become little more than a distant memory, or perhaps a waking dream.


	2. Chapter 2

The events had come to pass. John Clare, Caliban, the Creature, what ever name he used he was free of the cage. It had not lasted long. Bodies in his wake and a scream from the blind girl who had given him hope, and then shattered it. He returned to, moved through, the shadows of this wretched city. He pondered his place in the world, or lack there of, and where he would go next. He was following his maker again, likewise pondering how he might be able to revisit his own torment on the man he viewed as responsible, when a small voice spoke up beside him.

"It's you." He heard before he saw who held it, instinctively flinching away further into the shadows, doing what he could to hide his face even as he sought after who was speaking. It took him a moment to place the face, muttering without thought,

"You weren't a dream..." she only smiled, the expression alone making his chest tight. Why?

"I should say not! I didn't give you a name before. I'm called Niahm." it was pronounced Neve, and as she held out a hand he realized she couldn't have been any taller than four foot seven at best. Was that what she had meant by people like us? Her height? She had the voice of a woman but must have surely been mistaken often for a child. The memories were coming back to him more clearly the longer she stood there, but he sheepishly managed to turn away.

"John Clare." when he didn't offer a hand, she took his, shaking it without refrain or comment for the cold of his flesh.

"Well then, we've met proper John." Her pale face was splattered with freckles, long blond hair pulled up and back beneath the hood of her dark cloak, and her eyes in the daylight were a shade of green so vivid her could call them otherworldly. She didn't hesitate to use his first name anymore than she did to touch him, and both actions combined made him pull back his hand and step away in suspicion.

"I see no reason for you to seek a monster for company." he dismissed, all but lacking a hiss.

"Is that how you see yourself?" when he didn't answer her she continued, "Well then how might you see me?" it was a slow turn, but he found himself pulled back to her with the question. The only thing off about her was how small she was, as far as he could tell. Her green dress pooled down around her feet, the cloak a darker shade. It was a simple set of fabrics compared to the way so many other women dressed in the city, as if she belonged in a country home instead of a city. At last he placed the accent, Irish. The smile she gave him made her whole face light up, a pleasant imagined glow accenting her fair skin, those eyes trained upon him without any sign of terror. He answered without thought, perhaps incapable of it.

"Breathtaking..." he was pulled back towards her, one small step at a time, and the closer he came the brighter she shined and more tall she seemed to stand. She knew it, confidence beginning to line her smile to make it more of a smirk, but that didn't cause him alarm either.

This was not the sense of longing that had consumed him for so many aching nights. It was not the warmth he had mistaken for affection in the theater. It was not the demand or expectations he had placed on his failed bride, who had stood against him with strength equal to his own and shamed him in the process. And it was not the subtle calm Miss Ives had effected in him. He couldn't place this, but what ever it was he wanted to reach out for her. Her stance remained open to him, never shrinking back no matter how much closer he inched. In fact, when he began to raise a lumbering hand for her, she lifted a dainty one to meet it. The world had slowed, but right before their skin could touch again he got a terrible sense. Something about this was wrong. He tugged his hand back, cradling it as if she were an insect which had bitten him. For the slightest of seconds he could swear those green eyes had darkened, but it didn't last long enough to send him retreating.

"Well," her own voice held a hint of...what? Surprise? Insult? Both? "I won't stay anywhere I'm not wanted." she spun in a flourish of dress and cloak, the shadows wrapping around him so quickly it made him wince and cry out,

"Wait." she did pause, though she did not turn back to him. He knew it was a silly thing, to already feel such an ache in his chest for little more than a view of her back turned to him and sense that he had disappointed her, but knowing it was strange did not stop it from happening. He tried speaking it more gently, a plea for her to go back to paying attention to him with the same rapt interest she had held before. Could such a thing even be genuine? Was it truly possible at all? What kind of cruel trick was this, for a woman who looked like her to pay such attention to him? To go out of her way to say hello, to seek him in the darkness? They were strangers still. Who had set this up? What cruel joke was awaiting him with allowing someone like that around something like him? She was still standing there, and after a moment he reached out for her. His hand hesitated, but in time it placed itself on her shoulder. So lightly he wondered if she could feel it at all, so concerned was he that to do any more would break the fragile illusion which has been cast here. She turned to glance at it, and then the smile returned to him. He wasn't so sure his knees would keep from giving way under the weight of it.

"I hope you'll forgive me," why would she ask such a thing of him? "I didn't mean to bother you. You reminded me of someone is all..."

"I can't possibly imagine who." her eyes gained a hint of an underlining sadness, one he could recognize as loss before she shook it away, and he did not press the matter.

"I'm sorry. You weren't bothering me. I was...surprised is all." This can't be happening. Every muscle in his body warned him to run. But then, what threat had appeared so far that he hadn't been able to rip to shreds with his bare hands? It was not physical damages which concerned him. And his emotions had suffered enough to give him the confidence that at the very least, there was nothing she could do to him which he had not already suffered through. It was a pitiful confidence, but it drove him to remain all the same.

"As was I. Tell me, John, do you like music?"

"Do you like poetry?"

"Oh, I think we might just be able to get on after all. Are you terribly busy? Have I interrupted? Or would you happen to have some free time to spare?" Was he busy? What had he been doing? Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew there had been some task he was set upon. But now that he was trying to recall it, all he could see in its place was the way she lit up the darkness around them. He couldn't remember what he was doing before. And though that alone ought to have been ample warning, he answered her instead,

"Is that an invitation?"

"It is. Would you care to join me?" She was reaching up for the hand on her shoulder, but he slid it back and away again just before their skin could brush.

"What will your other company think, to see you next to me?" he was shrinking back again, but she snapped a hand out this time for his. Both hands, in fact. If he didn't know any better he could have sworn there had been a hint of desperation in her features, for only a hair, but he wouldn't be able to grasp why.

"Is the company I keep not my own choice to make? What does it have to do with anyone else?" Her hands were warm on his, and he would be ashamed to admit he wondered what the rest of her skin would feel like. A thought he would certainly keep to himself, brush away, focusing instead on the lyrical way she spoke and graceful ways she moved. She wouldn't take no for an answer now, pulling him forward, and his feet could not resist but to follow. She kept a hold of his hand, as they began to wind their way through the streets and the people.

The more they walked, the more he began to suspect this were a dream. There was no possible way reality could ever be so abruptly sweet. She did realize, didn't she? That she still had a grasp on his hand even after it was clear he would follow? His attention slipped away from her and moved to the crowd around them when they would need to weave through it. Examining the odd glances and repulsive stares as he passed, the confusion for the petite thing that still led him onward without refrain. But there was no time to stop. She wouldn't allow it, and he was in truth thankful for that. Soon they were moving through an area sparsely populated and in more desperate need of repair. This was a place still marked by both sickness and fire, the stones charred. She still did not slow, she faced this location with the same fearlessness she had approached him with. Ducking and weaving, into a crumbling building that by all rights didn't look very safe to go into.

"This way!" she knew it well enough, her hand finally slipping from his so the small nimble frame could begin to all but fly through the collapse. He paused.

"It doesn't look safe, might we-"

"Come on!" she had the impatience of a child, and wasn't keen on waiting for him. His yellow eyes moved above to the precarious crumble of roof and cracked frames. Uncertainty tugged at his coat tails, but after a moment he heaved a sigh and began to search out a path through the rubble.

"This way!" she of course had an easier time of it, at one portion he made a misstep that made one of the supporting beams begin to crumple further, threatening to pin him under it. If not for his inhuman strength it would have crushed him, but instead he was able to push it away and continue. On the other side was a hole just large enough for him to crawl through, he peered through it for any further dangers and saw only day light and the beginnings of grass. Through he went, standing again to bare witness to where she had led him.

It was a clearing, a tiny little patch of scarce earth, untouched by the surrounding buildings though still shared black from fire. No, only charged black on the very edges. In the very center of this was a small twisting tree, and around that a perfectly circular growth of grass which extended out from it. Lush, brilliant fresh green, the leaves on the tree were freshly budding. The base of the bark bent and curved itself, making for a segment which she sat most easily upon. He was in sudden awe, more so than for any vision which had greeted him before this. He had no idea something like this existed within this brick and cobblestone maze of filth and dirt and gray coal smoke. It must surely have been someone's attempt at a garden, once, but how did the tree and grass survive? And why should he be blessed with such a vision as the naturally lithe nymph which had led him here, perching as a bird might? She lowered her hood, and removed the pin from her hair. Gold tresses spilled in a wave down her back with a shake of her head. Instead of commenting on her clear distaste for the style of hair she had been wearing for the public, she spoke to him with a lyrical calm and grace which had been absent in their prior conversation. It drew him towards her, though he still had just enough sense to stop and think to remove his shoes. He did not know why. But he knew he must, before treading on this place.

"Do you think fire a danger? Not more than a destructive force which brings death and destruction?" he managed to answer her with the same calm she gave, and his response earned a surprised raise of her eye brows.

"Not at all. Fire warms our homes, it cooks our food, it provides light in the nights and energy for the newest inventions." he was strangely pleased to have surprised her, as if somehow he had passed a test of sorts.

"All true. It does more than that. Where it burns, new life is free to grow. The ashes in the soil leave the plants to flourish. See how fresh the green?" she motioned to it, and though he wished to sit beside her, he felt his lumbering form was an intrusive design compared to her petite and lightweight frame. She was little more than a breeze compared to him, but upon lookimg he found there was a rock only just large enough for him to set upon. When he settle down, his gaze traveled back to where he had journeyed, to find the grass could spring back up where he had stepped upon it. He was glad for that, not wishing to do any damage to this pristine place. A sigh of relief escaped his lips, and when he turned back she held a violin at the ready. Or at least, what he took for one. The first few draws across the strings corrected the idea. Fiddle, for the way she would play it. That suited her much better, if he were to be honest. There had been nothing prim and proper about her so far, which was not a thought of any insult.

"You remind me of a wild wind." she paused with a hum to glance up at him, tuning the piece, so he continued, "The more I see of you. I-" he cut himself off, his own words faltering. It did not do this situation, these emotions, her, any justice. So he turned to what he loved so well to aid him.

"Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,

And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom  
Ye learn your song:  
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,  
Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air  
Bloom the year long!" she interrupted him, she knew the poem, and her rendition held a sorrow to match the change in tone and drown the listener. Because her words were a song, clear as any spring and resounding around them with the cadence of a well made church in place of the outdoor clearing they had found.

"Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:

Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,  
A throe of the heart,  
Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,  
No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,  
For all our art.  
Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men  
We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,  
As night is withdrawn  
From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,  
Dream, while the innumerable choir of day  
Welcome the dawn." As her voice faded away, he found himself less without it. His mind reeled, searched for some form of poetry which could describe this emotion, searched in vein for anything which could put word to this experience. He found nothing, but the desire for her to sing again. As if she knew it, she lifted the bow to the strings of her instrument, and let a line of notes drift out to fill the silence between them. It was no song he had ever heard, no coordination of notes he was familiar with. But the lyrics, he recognized instantly as I am! by the very poet whose name he had stolen.

"I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;

My friends forsake me like a memory lost:

I am the self-consumer of my woes—

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes

And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life or joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;

Even the dearest that I loved the best

Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod

A place where woman never smiled or wept

There to abide with my kind

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie

The grass below—above the vaulted sky." she changed one line, so as to make no mention of God, but he was not fool enough to think, for as pleasant as a song to poem was, that he hadn't been found out. If his cheeks could be flushed they may have been, looking not unlike a school boy caught in a lie. Instead her smile was cheeky as she made call on him,

"I like the name you have chosen."

"And is yours as well a chosen?" she gave another little hum, and drew up from beside her the case for her instrument. He felt a tug at his heart for seeing it being set away, wishing instantly for another round of nectar melody to coat his skin and drip into his chest.

"Well enough." she gave pause then, considering him with some amount of thought written across her face before speaking once more, "Don't you miss it?" the single sentence was but a breath.

"Miss...what?"

"Home. The place we have come from." at last confusion set in, unable to follow what she meant.

"I have never known anything to be liken to a home." she recoiled, eyes wide with disbelief, then fading into consideration for him.

"Yes...it is impossible to find that feeling here, among the mortals." her attention jumped up the buildings surrounding the clearing, past the rooftops to the sky, so as she missed his incredulous expression.

"Mortals...you speak as if you are not-"

"You can drop the act. It is clear that we are each of us-" when she looked back, however, realization dawned. He truly was not following.

"Oh. You are not...?" surprise found her voice as easily as it did her expressions. In a sudden motion she was all but flying down to him, one hand pulling up her skirts so she could crawl up and into his lap with no refrain at all. As bold as the rest of her had been, he had no time to back away. Only to gasp as she pressed a hand to his face and gazed into his eyes so intently he suspected she could see into his very soul. He sat perfectly rigid, too afraid to move, too afraid to hurt her by mistake if he did. She was so terribly small and weighed almost nothing upon him. He got to watch realization flick into her eyes, shock, followed by calculations made swiftly. She had so much more going on in that mind than a taste for poems and music. He was suddenly acutely aware that she was very likely smarter than even he could anticipate.

"What if you could?" he didn't trust himself to answer, words failing his every attempt completely, trying instead to do all he could not to be blinded by the fact that this woman was so soon content to invade his personal space so. Trying not to allow himself to hope this would be anything but heartache. She spoke again for him.

"What if you could find a home? What if there were a place where those like us could live in harmony. In peace. In love?" the last word made him close his eyes, struggling to breath. She may as well have been an elephant instead of a girl, weighing down on his chest.

"Please. Open your eyes." it was such a small request. The minute desperation he suspected he had seen earlier pouring into it. So he did, and another gasp escaped him. The woman before him was changed. Her ears small points, a pair or small white antlers budding from her head, barely begun to form, and there was no longer any question as to the otherworldly tint of her eyes. Her skirts were still ridden up to free her legs, and curled to one side was a long pale tail with a tuft of blonde fur at its end.

"I do not know what you call yourself, but we are called the Fair Folk. And in the land I come from, there are many of us." she shook her head, and the unusual features disappeared back into what he had seen before. He ached to have such a gift as that, to be able to hide his deformities when ever he should chose. So much he almost missed what she was saying. Fair Folk. Faerie. But those were only legend, were they not? Yet here one sat upon his lap, gazing into his own eyes.

"This must be a dream..." it had to be. The words may as well have been a slap in the face, they drove her away from him quickly, standing rigid in the grass and looking every bit hurt for it.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" she glanced away and when he reached for her she put up a hand defensively. It was that same stinging feeling he always felt with rejection, that so often soon turned to anger, if not for the agony in her voice.

"I want to go home. I thought you might..." it was too much for her, he caught her tears when she turned from him and it was a new kind of stab in his own chest. There was no further sound from her, but the quiver of her shoulders gave it away. He wasn't sure what to say. Should he leave? He considered that, and realized he didn't actually have any idea where they were. She may as well have led him into the mists already. Did he mind? He could swear the stories about Faeries he had heard never ended well. But then what in his life ever did?

"Will you tell me about it? About your home?"

"There are no words. It is a feeling as much as a place. But it doesn't matter. I was a fool to think I might return." a hardness slipped into her voice, head turning skyward again. It was a stubbornness for herself, not for him.

"Why don't you?"

"There are dangers between here and there, that I am ill-equipped to conquer. It is not a journey I can make alone or with mortal." She shook her head, wiped her tears with back of hands, and turned another smile to him. A shadow of the former offering.

"I seem to have wasted your time. Come, I'll return you to the city proper then." she gave the smile more effort, and turned to go back the way they had come, but he stopped her with a hand coming to her arm. Perhaps to fast, he mentally chided himself and hoped it had not hurt her. She didn't cry out in any pain.

"You were hoping I would go with you." her head hung, unable to deny it. He considered the options and situation before him. Was it so bad? Compared to so many others before her? He supposed it was a form of using him, but it was also a form that sought him to be by her side. Which offered him a place where, by her claim, there were more like "them". Where he would be welcome. Did he truly believe in such a place? That it could exist? No. But she did. She had so much faith that it brought her to weep for the loss of it. His grip on her arm loosened.

"What if I would go with you?" the face that turned back to him was pure. Unmistakable. Hopeful under the stain of tears, then guarded as if he were poking fun at her. The same way he had felt guarded earlier.

"If what you claim is true, if there is truly a place where the likes of us can have a home, can live in peace and..." he almost couldn't bring himself to say it, but did, "love, then what kind of man would I be to deny you the chance to return?"

"A fair kind, certainly not a monster." she was still waiting. She needed him to say it. Towering over her didn't quite feel right, so he took to a knee in the grass.

"Niahm, will you show me the place you call home?" her face lit up instantly, an excited and high pitched shrill escaping her as she slid her arms round him with an unabashed fling.

"I would love nothing less!" it was a whisper in his ear, and he took the proximity as permission to return the embrace. He wasn't sure how long they stayed there like that, each clinging to the other's company, as if both were waiting for this dream to come to an end. Both waiting to wake up once more in the black and gray city, alone among mortals.

* * *

 **AN:** first poem is Nightingales by Robert Bridges.

Next chapter will feature Brona/Lily and Dorian.


End file.
